LIVING THINGS: One Year Retrospective

With one year now having elapsed since the release of Linkin Park's fifth studio album, the LIVING THINGS era can best be described as "extraordinary". Linkin Park have proven over the years that the strength of their relationship with their fans is something rarely found in the music industry. When it comes to new music, the band has become masterful at hyping up their releases and generating excitement within their fan base. However, the band took it to a whole new level leading up to the release of LIVING THINGS. From worldwide scavenger hunts to cryptic messages to online games, not a single day went by in the summer of 2012 without its share of excitement.

Before the band took us on their continental roller coaster, they released a series of cryptic messages that sent the fanbase into a frenzy. Fans spent hours on our forums and elsewhere trying to decrypt series of the numbers which corresponded to the album title. It was soon learned that the debut single was called “BURN IT DOWN", which was finally released after fans spent hours trying to complete an interactive flash game to release snippets of the song. Fan reactions widely varied, as Linkin Park fans are accustomed to do, but the overall reaction for "BURN IT DOWN" was generally positive, as it harkened back to the band's earlier days with a modern electronic twist.

The album's hype cycle took a major jump forward with the unveiling of the band's worldwide Scavenger Hunt. Originating in Sydney, Australia, the adventure played out over Twitter as we vicariously traveled across the globe, to Tokyo, Toronto, Chicago, Rio de Janeiro, Los Angeles, Berlin and London. LPA members were at the forefront of it all, feverishly coming up with hypotheses with the reveal of each clue. We visited zoos, art galleries, cafes and museums. In London, the final stop, something massive happened.

The final clue of the Scavenger Hunt ultimately took us on the airwaves. BBC Radio 1 host Zane Lowe declared that the end prize of the hunt would be a new LIVING THINGS track. A participant would be selected and would have the opportunity to interview with Mike Shinoda. LPAers from all over the United Kingdom made a mad dash to BBC studios, including some of our own site admins! As everything fell into place, our admin Joe was chosen to speak with Mike and be given the chance to leak “LIES GREED MISERY” to the world. The song was released through LPAssociation, with our name on the original filename, in one of the biggest moments for our site. None of that could have happened without committed fans and LPA members like you.

Soon, the album was unintentionally leaked by iTunes. Initial reviews were very positive. Soon after the album leaked, we held a special listening party in our shoutbox so everyone could experience the album together. It was absolute madness in the chat. In a way, it was no surprise that LIVING THINGS was so well received - it was basically an encapsulation of LP's musical history. We were seeing the band return to its roots whilst simultaneously embracing the electronic sounds that defined A Thousand Suns. Aptly put, LIVING THINGS was a hybrid (pardon the pun) of everything the band had done before – a concept familiar to Linkin Park fans new and old. Most commentary centered on how the band seemed to figure itself out – finally comfortable in their own skin and confident in their ability to make the music they wanted.

Not long after, LIVING THINGS made its way to the shelves. The band held true to their earlier promise about not taking very long to release new music, as not even two years after A Thousand Suns, fans already had the new CD in their hands. The album performed well in its first week, debuting at number one on Billboard 200 and selling 223,000 copies in the US – beating out top pop-rock heavyweight Maroon 5. The album debuted at #1 in 17 countries, becoming the band's best-charted album to date. As of this month, it has sold over 625,000 copies in the United States.

A year later, however, it is hard to say how LIVING THINGS will stand the test of the time. Hybrid Theory, for many fans, will remain the band’s most timeless release. A Thousand Suns marked the greatest departure from the band’s sound to date, garnering comparison to the likes of Radiohead’s Kid A. We are uncertain what place LIVING THINGS will have when it reaches the age of 10 as Meteora did this year. However, if there is one thing we know for certain, it is that the album is a testament to the band’s boldness and confidence. From its introspective lyrics to its raw emotion, it has impacted each of us differently. It is familiar, but unique. Short, but exciting from beginning to end. One thing we will never forget how much fun it was to discover LIVING THINGS together.

Thank you for participating in our LIVING THINGS One-Year Anniversary Weekend. We’re excited to see what the band has in store for us going into their next album – we hope you will join us for the ride!

Until then, what did you find most memorable about the LIVING THINGS album cycle? How do you feel about the album a year later? Share your thoughts on our forums!

Special thanks to Louis for writing this article.

 

I remember that "Living Things" came out a night before I thought it would, and I learned this as I was about to go shopping so that was lucky.

My first listen-through: I took Shinoda's suggestion about making the first listen a kind of event so I put the CD into a PS3 console and blasted it through some living room speakers. If you're excited about an album, I recommend that you experience it like that, because the excitement that I felt painted my first impression of the album and it hasn't really faded. The songs still sound huge to me and I like that. So that inspired me to rip the songs to my computer in a lossless format, the first time I had ever done that for any album ever.

Even though I have fond and vivid memories of the first time I heard the album, my recollections of the sliding puzzles and the scavenger hunt (the latter of which I did not participate in at all) are just a blur. Feels like they happened a whole lifetime ago

My opinions about the individual songs have changed over time since then but I've always been happy with "Living Things" on the whole. To me, it packs a lot of great things in a compact and concise length. Like every Linkin Park studio album to date, "Living Things" features some really great songs which could never have existed on the LP albums which came before it, and which are clearly unique to this band.

Another of the most significant things about this album cycle for me was the release of all the vocal and instrumental mixes of every track on the album via iTunes. The fact that these songs sound a little more accessible, both individually and as a whole album, makes them more fun to reinterpret. Before 2012, I was sure that I'd never make a remix of a Linkin Park song again but here we are.

And, lastly, I got to see the band live in late February, my third time attending a Linkin Park show but the first one where I was in a standing area.

 

Cheers.

 

Great article. Awesome Retrospective. So here we are. A year later. I still remember when it leaked, I downloaded it, admittedly, but never listened to it. The only song that I teased myself with was LOST IN THE ECHO. I remember playing it up until the first chorus and stopping numerous times, but I listened to Mike and I waited to experience the album on release day. I did it at midnight my time. I hooked up my headphones to my Ipod in my darkened family room, closed my eyes and listened.

-I remember the huge smile that came across my face when Chester started screaming during the intro to the bridge on LOST IN THE ECHO.

-I remember coming to the realization of how awesome the "Like an army" part sounded, especially hearing everyone on the forums talking about it.

-I remember hearing BURN IT DOWN and realizing that I was one of the first people ever to hear the song when it finally got streamed on LinkinPark.com after the puzzle.

-I remember listening to LIES GREED MISERY again after hearing it for the first time when Joe leaked it on Radio One.

-With I'LL BE GONE, I remember hearing people shooting the song down after the hype of Owen Palet's addition to the track. I didn't buy the hype, as I am not an Arcade Fire fan, but I did love the track and how the strings were pushed into the background. I love this because it makes you listen for them. They are not "in your face," nor should they be in the song. It's almost like the strings took on the line of "Out there in the silence, I'll be gone." Anyways, for how "Generic" and how much people claim it to be a 3rd "What I've Done," I will be the one to stand here and say that I'LL BE GONE is easily the most underrated song on LIVING THINGS.

-The hype for CASTLE OF GLASS when the titles of the tracks were released was quite hilarious for me. Fans were judging the songs by their titles before they heard one note of the song. Quite a few LPA members went on record saying something along the lines of "CASTLE OF GLASS" is going to be awesome, without even hearing it. Anyways, that was silly. I still think the song is bad ass. It has that definite "folk" influence with the addition of the harmonica. Overall a great song. I remember hearing it for the first time saying "Wow, what a build!" Still one of my favorite parts on LIVING THINGS is the endind to that song.

-Oh VICTIMIZED. I still remember hearing this collision of a song and leaving me feeling at the highest of highs. The song left me speechless in an awesome way grinning from ear to ear.

-That grin vanished very quickly as I was left in shambles after hearing ROADS UNTRAVELED. After the first listen of this song, I was a hysterical mess. The lyrics cut deep, but it was like they knew exactly what I've gone through. To leave me with a line "If you need a friend, there's a seat here along side me" made me feel like Linkin Park knew I was leaning on their music quite a bit, and they just told me that it was okay. Words cannot describe how meaningful that was for me.

-SKIN TO BONE came and went. I was still trying to process what happened in the previous song, but towards the end of STB, I remembered thinking to myself how great that beat was and how unconventional the song was written.

-UNTIL IT BREAKS came on and I remember thinking "Wow, was that ADD and all over the place!" Also, I remember loving the APACHES verse, remembering hearing it as an intro to "Waiting For The End" When it was played live. Also, Brad singing, although I knew it was coming, still came as a shock. I wasn't overwhelmed by it, but I was still shocked.

-I remember hearing TINFOIL for the first time and thinking about how "ATS" that felt as an intro/interlude. It's still a track that when I hear it, I feel like I've drifted away to an alternate time and place. It's very moving for an "instrumental track." I use that loosely as it still feels incomplete without POWERLESS.

-POWERLESS was another one that brought some tears to my eyes. I remember hearing the track and reflecting on some of my own short comings. It made me quite emotional. The bridge on POWERLESS is another amazing part of LIVING THINGS and how it flows into the Chorus/Outro is one of the things that amazes me to this day.

I'm not going to lie, I still listen to LIVING THINGS on a regular basis. The album has blown me away. This was the first time I listened to a Linkin Park album without having any expectations of it. I made a concious decision to not want anything out of the album. I put my trust in the band to make music that I love and they did just that. As time progresses, I still have that trust that the band will do something awesome. They've been making music that I love for 13 years now and I trust them to keep that track record going.